Course 2: Becoming a 7 Cups Leader - (Discussion #1) Welcome to Course 2!

@Heather225

Course 2 quiz:

Question: What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?

If I have an imbalance of expectations and warmth it could feed back to the rest of my team. That is when I would use self care to balance myself back to being warm and help my team with the duties we perform.

Activity: Please reply to 3 of your peers in this thread with encouraging or supportive words!

Done

completed course 2 today my score was: 11//16

Having too few expectations would undermine the potentials of each member of the community as well as what we could do collectively if we try our best. Naturally people wouldn't go out of their way and try too hard for any task if they are not required or encouraged to do so, so having a high expectation as a part of a leadership role is really essential. It helps make sure that the leaders know what is expected of them, this also works great especially when the organization also offers enough resources and help for the leaders to overcome the expectations.

Having too little warmth would strain the members of the community. When people don't connect with each other, they can hardly be motivated at all times or reach out for help when they really need them. If this goes on for a long time, the members of the community would feel left out, secluded, and not feel their importance as a part of something greater. Their role performances and mental health would inevitably suffers.

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth?

If I, as a 7Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth, it will highly affect the quality of work. If I had high expectations and low warmth, then the end result would be not up to the mark as I would continue to expect work of high quality from people but not be willing to support them. We need to expect a high quality of work, but, at the same time, be willing to support and guide them towards reaching that expectation. If I have low expectations and high warmth, then people will feel supported but they won't be able to reach their true potential due to low expectations.

How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?

1. The community- Having too low expectations will wind up undermining achievements. People will be working, but they won't be able to reach their true capability because so less is expected of them. High expectations will improve performance as it will push people to their limits. Hence, I believe that too low of expectations is bad for the community as the quality of work will be low and people won't get the opportunity to explore hidden potential. Too little warmth will be bad for the community too as leaders should be equipped to expect results as well as guide people towards achieving the required result.

2. How I work with fellow leaders- An imbalance of expectations and warmth will strain my relationship with fellow leaders. If we lack compassion and understanding for each other, we will not be able to work collaboratively due to lack of strong relationships. Too low expectations will mean that my fellow leaders will not be able to trust me with fulfilling my responsibilities properly. If one member on the team has too low expectations, they can bring the whole team down.

Hence, too low of expectations and too little warmth affects both the community and my work with fellow leaders negatively..

@Heather225

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?

1) having too little warmth might lead to non-connectedness in the 7cups community, we might become strangers without compassions towards each other, finding it hard to share and everyone will start being seperated. having too little expectation might lead to everyone believing less of themselves, not pushing and growing past current limitations.

2) having too little warmth might make fellow ldeaders become competitive towards each others as each person is only solely focusing on developing themselves, thus cannot support each other. having too little expectations might allow fellow leaders to loose motivation and drive to grow upon their own limits and thus they can be lazier and start slacking off.

@Heather225

As a 7cups leader having:

Too low of expectations Impact:

- On community would mean my role won't be fulfilled leaving a gap in my team work that can affect the service provided

- On my work with my fellow leaders it's bound to create conflict as they would have to fill the gaps I create. Also that would make me the irresponsible unreliable person among them.

Too little warmth impact:

- On community could result in little personal growth to the teams and thus the community and can have a very negative impact on various roles as 7cups roles are based on volunteering and with volunteering little warmth won't make it work

- On my work with fellow leaders will create more conflict and affect team work and thus would result a negative impact creating disharmony

When I have an imbalance of warmth and expectations, I can quickly create an unpleasant environment for my fellow teammates and also might just be annoyed and frustrated constantly.

I think too low expectations will result in the community not realising the full value of 7Cups as a platform, and it would make me, personally, less motivated to contribute. Too low warmth would just make the community itself having no bond, and everyone would treat it as a chore. It would also make me start seeing 7Cups as a burden rather than the wonderful platform it is right now.

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?

to have an imbalance of expectations and warmth is not a good thing, and i'll try to change myself. I think it will impact the community, less people would come. And with the fellow leaders, they will too be lazy.

I think having an imbalance of expectations and warmth can hinder a listeners ability to help members. Having low expectations can cause subpar performance and having too little warmth can drive members away as you may come off cold especially through text messages. I think that having not enough expectations or warmth can definitely impact the way you connect with leaders because it's a lot easier to communicate and work with a leader that has high expectations and is friendly because it motivates the community to do better.

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth?

An imbalance of expectations and warmth can go two ways; either high expectations with low warmth or low expectations with high warmth. As a 7 Cups leader, it is highly likely that in both these instances, there will be a drop in the quality of work I put out and the relationships fostered between myself and both members and listeners would suffer.

How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact

1.) the community,

Low expectations (& high warmth)
It can be very easy to slack off when expectations are low. This could lead to widespread lack of a sense of accountability and responsibility in the community. When this happens, problem solving progress is going to be slow; goals aren’t going to be accomplished as effectively, and both our personal and our collective 7 Cups gas tanks will be drained because negative behaviors like being distracted, making excuses and avoiding problems would become rampant.

Little warmth (& high expectations)
When there is little warmth however, the community can become prone to burning out because tensions are high. Being consistently put under pressure to perform and meet high expectations with little to no support or motivation, would lead to unfulfilling work and stagnated growth in both the individual and the community as a whole.

and
2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?

Low expectations (& high warmth)
Similarly to the aforementioned lack of accountability and responsibility, the way I work with fellow leaders would be adversely affected as well. When expectations are minimal, it would be easy for me to not take my work and collaboration with other leaders seriously, which would result in overall poor performance and below par work being done.

Little warmth (& high expectations)
On the other hand in a scenario where there’s little warmth, my relationships with my fellow leaders would very likely suffer, as there would be lack of friendliness, conscientiousness and trust between us. Without these key components, we would not be able collaborate with each other well nor trust each other to do what we need to do to be successful on 7 Cups.